The company announced this in a press release this morning. A restructuring procedure under self-administration is being applied for. According to creditor protectors, the liabilities are around 4.5 billion euros and the assets are around 1.3 billion euros. 300 creditors and 28 employees are affected.
The company is offering its creditors a restructuring quota of 30 percent payable within two years – that would be 1.4 billion euros. The company is to be continued.
As SIGNA announced in a broadcast shortly after half past ten today, the board of directors has requested the adoption of a restructuring plan. “The aim is the orderly continuation of operational business operations within the framework of self-administration and the sustainable restructuring of the company. SIGNA Development Selection AG is in the same situation and will submit the application for restructuring proceedings with self-administration tomorrow, December 29, 2023.
In SIGNA Prime, Benko has bundled SIGNA’s shares in well-known properties such as Vienna’s “Golden Quartier”, the Lamarr department store on Vienna’s Mariahilfer Straße and Berlin’s KaDeWe. At the end of November, self-administered restructuring proceedings were initiated via the parent company SIGNA Holding.
The SIGNA Group cites “external factors” as the reason for the bankruptcies, which had a negative impact on business development. “Together with the restructuring administrator to be appointed, the goal is to implement further measures to continue operations,” says SIGNA. Prime board spokesman Erhard F. Grossnigg stated: “We will approach these important tasks carefully and sensibly. It is important to find long-term solutions. The quality of the SIGNA Prime portfolio is excellent, the development prospects of the development projects in top locations of the German-speaking metropolises is very good.”
At the former flagship company SIGNA around the politically well-connected shooting star Benko, the bad news hasn’t stopped recently. Shortly before Christmas, SIGNA Real Estate Management reported 45 employees to the AMS for termination. At the same time, it became known that one of the most renowned hotels in Venice, the Hotel Bauer on the Grand Canal, like many other SIGNA projects, is on hold. This should also be the case with the planned Lamarr shopping center on Vienna’s Mariahilfer Straße.
In mid-December it was also announced that the extremely prominent SIGNA advisory board would be dissolved. The holding’s advisory board included former SPÖ Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer as well as Wüstenrot boss and ex-FPÖ Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Hahn. Company founder René Benko was chairman of the committee until his departure in November 2023. The restructuring manager of the insolvent SIGNA Holding had previously announced the sale of assets such as the Chrysler Building and the media holdings in “Krone” and “Kurier”.
Rene Benko comes from a humble background and managed to become one of the richest entrepreneurs in the country without having a school diploma. The Innsbruck native began building his now stumbling empire at the age of 22. This year, the magazine “Trend” estimated Benko’s assets at 4.2 billion euros. He is said to have a very quick comprehension and an extraordinary memory for numbers as well as a lot of hard work. And he is considered a gifted networker; important people from business, politics, media and culture come every year to his autumnal Törggelen – the South Tyrolean custom of eating chestnuts and wine. His closeness to former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) was repeatedly discussed in the media.
Benko’s high-gloss SIGNA Prime Selection is yellowing due to insolvency
The SIGNA Prime Selection packed into its name, in a marketing-friendly manner, what it was supposed to represent in the Benko company structure: the crème de la crème of SIGNA real estate as the largest SIGNA company in this area. But this glossy company is now also insolvent. The Prime Selection includes, for example, the Golden Quarter with the luxury hotel Park Hyatt, the Kunstforum and the would-be luxury department store Lamarr in Vienna, which is currently a shell.
The “Gross Asset Value”, i.e. the sum of the real estate values, was most recently stated on the homepage as 20.4 billion euros. However, media reports spoke of properties that were sometimes significantly overvalued – for example in Berlin near the Upper West. In addition to the dormant Lamarr construction site in Vienna, construction of the Elbtower skyscraper in Hamburg, for example, is also at a standstill. Focus according to the company: investment and long-term holding of exceptional properties in best inner-city locations. Since 2010, the company has developed into one of the largest real estate companies in Europe. Now the bankruptcy came, in which the continuation should succeed with a restructuring.
Renovator Erhard Grossnigg recently became board spokesman. His predecessor Timo Herzberg was immediately removed as CEO, which he had also been at the second particularly large SIGNA real estate company, Development Selection. The chairman of the supervisory boards of both of these companies is former Federal Chancellor and SPÖ leader Alfred Gusenbauer. His deputy is the ex-general director of Casinos Austria, Karl Stoss.
Herzeige projects can also be found in German metropolises such as Düsseldorf (Carsch-Haus), Munich (Karstadt am Bahnhofplatz, Oberpollinger, Alte Akademie), Hamburg (Elbtower, Kaufmannshaus, Alster-Arkaden, Gänsemarktpassage) and Berlin (KaDeWe, Upper West, Karstadt Hermannplatz, P1). In smaller cities such as Innsbruck and Bolzano, the Tyrol department store and the Museumsquartier am Virgl are part of the prime.
In Vienna, the Austria Campus near the Nordbahnviertel is also part of the Prime Selection. According to “trend”, the Meinl House on Graben was recently sold to the Vienna Medical Association’s welfare fund for an alleged sum of 80 million euros. The Postal Savings Bank is also part of the Benko glossy empire that is currently yellowing due to insolvency.
The entire ownership structure is very complex – eleven companies with other different owners, some of whom are international billionaires – and the Benko Family Private Foundation plays an important role. The co-shareholder SIGNA Holding holds almost 20 percent and is to be restructured as part of the insolvency proceedings that have already been opened. According to Wirtschafts-Compass, the calculated beneficial owners are ultimately Ingeborg Benko, Rene Benko, TPA auditor and tax advisor Karin Fuhrmann and Marcus Mühlberg. The latter, alongside Christoph Stadlhuber, is managing director of SIGNA Holding, which went bankrupt at the end of November.
Media reports have shown that the SIGNA Group has put a lot of energy into avoiding an obligation to consolidate the entire group in recent years. The company deliberately designed corporate law nestings within the group in such a way that there was no legal obligation to consolidate; the support was the TPA law firm, according to documents that “News” recently published.
Most recently (2022) the numbers were already deep red, the EGT was negative at around 1.2 billion euros. The number of employees in the Prime Group amounted to 313, up from 467 in 2021, shows the Economic Compass.
Keyword – bankruptcies: Benko companies conquer negative stock positions
At the end of 2023, events accelerated to the top of the negative list of bankruptcies with the highest liabilities – thanks to the SIGNA real estate network. It is becoming apparent that from tomorrow, Friday, the floor will be full of SIGNA companies owned by the alleged real estate mastermind Rene Benko. Together, SIGNA Holding, SIGNA Prime and SIGNA Development will then have accumulated liabilities well into the double-digit billion range.
For ten years, i.e. since 2013, Alpine Bau was in first place with liabilities of 3.2 billion euros. At the end of November, this sum was easily topped by SIGNA Holding with 5 billion euros. On Thursday, SIGNA Prime – the yellowing, high-gloss real estate division of the crumbling Benko empire – was added with liabilities of 4.5 billion euros and, in a negative sense, took second place. If the insolvency application for SIGNA Development is filed tomorrow, Friday, as announced on Thursday, and more concrete figures are available, Alpine Bau will, according to all expectations, be relegated to fourth place.
Before Alpine Bau, only consumption with almost 1.9 billion euros had managed to accumulate liabilities that exceeded one billion. That was 1995.
A-Tec also scratched the billion in 2010 with 980 million euros. Behind them are the Mattersburger Commerzialbank (2020 with 800 million euros), the Maculan Group (1996, 799 million euros) and the AvW Group (2010, 763 million euros). The AE&E Group also “made” half a billion in 2010 and Activ Solar in 2016. They each accumulated exactly 500 million euros in liabilities.
APA